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About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in jo... (More)

About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community. (Hide)

Indian street food and ... bitcoins?

Uploaded: Apr 17, 2014

Palo Alto now has a grand total of two eateries where diners can pay with notorious e-currency bitcoins, with Curry Up Now jumping on the bandwagon last week (joining Coupa Cafe, which has been accepting bitcoins since last year).

"Hello awesome people. We now accept #bitcoin at our Palo Alto location," Curry Up Now tweeted on April 11. "Coming to other locations very soon. Everything is awesome."

Darrel Oribello, general manager of the casual Indian street food restaurant at 321 Hamilton Ave., said they were encouraged by a Curry Up Now fan who wanted nothing more than to be able to pay for the eatery's Indian-style burritos with bitcoins.

"It's fast, cheap, private and (we) believe it to be part of our paying future," Oribello added.

Curry Up Now is currently using BitPay, a payment platform for the e-currency, to accept payments, but Oribello said he expects the restaurant's point of sale (POS) software to have an integrated bitcoin payment system "shortly."

Curry Up Now was born as a food truck and morphed into three brick-and-mortar locations (Palo Alto, San Mateo and San Francisco). The trucks still operate, too, and Oribello said all outposts -- mobile or otherwise -- will soon accept bitcoins.

"Palo Alto is the heart of the Silicon Valley, why not start here first?" he said.

Posted by Bunyipd,
a resident of Adobe-Meadows,
on Apr 20, 2014 at 10:50 am

I want to pay with paper clips.. Please service my need I am part of the me-me generation and believe it will be the next disruptive payment system. Oh and I am a techie (kinda provides that elitist touch don't you think).

I look forward to the days we glorify tradespeople. You know, people who actually build useful things.

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